Entered CNET Catalog: 03/20/2005
SKU: 0747464109527
Manufacturer: Buffalo Technology (USA), Inc.
Manufacturer description
Buffalo's TeraStation Series of Terabyte Network Attached Storage offers powerful storage, server and multimedia solutions for both the SMB and consumer markets. Combining advanced fault tolerant data solutions, robust file security and Gigabit Ethernet networking, TeraStation allows users to deploy a simple, cost-effective data or media server to their office or home network in literally minutes without cutting corners on features or expandability. By offering a total of four USB 2.0 ports, the device can accommodate additional external USB hard drives for expanded networked storage or as backup targets. Additionally, a USB printer can be attached and shared over the network via TeraStation's built-in Print Server. Compatibility with Buffalo's LinkTheater Wireless HD Media Player allows wired or wireless streaming of your multimedia files to your television in almost any audio, video or graphic format. With its sleek, aesthetic design and ultra-silent operation, the TeraStation will get envious looks whether it is located in a busy office environment or on the entertainment system in your living room without adding any distracting fan noise or taking up much space.Product summary
The good: Supercapacious; easy to set up and configure; relatively inexpensive; can be arranged in a RAID array; Gigabit Ethernet.
The bad: Need to manually enable DHCP; always uses Internet Explorer rather than a default browser; minor issues with installation GUI; short one-year warranty.
The bottom line: Inexpensive and easy-to-set-up network storage for your home or small business.
Average user rating: 
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 05/04/2005
The silver-hued TeraStation resembles a PC subwoofer or the center unit from a compact stereo. It stands 8.7 inches tall, 9.5 inches deep, and 6.6 inches wide. The front panel houses a small power switch and two USB ports on the left side and a large, circular drive-status display in the center, with three additional power, diagnostic, and network-link status LEDs providing feedback on the device's current state. The back of the unit is dominated by a large fan outlet. Also on the back are a standard three-prong power-cord jack, two more USB 2.0 ports, the RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet port, and a serial port for monitoring an uninterruptible power supply. There's a chassis hook for cabling the unit in place to prevent theft.
All TeraStations employ four 7,200rpm ATA100 hard drives that can be configured in a variety of ways: Standard, or non-RAID mode, where each drive operates independently; Spanning mode, where the four drives are combined into a single striped unit for increased performance; RAID 1 mode, where you'll see two 250GB drives, each of which is mirrored for data redundancy and safety; and RAID 5, where three drives are combined into a single 750GB unit, and the fourth functions as a parity drive for data protection, which you can use to restore your data should one of the drives fail (capacities refer to the 1TB version we tested). All configuration and management is done via a Web browser using Buffalo's well-designed and intuitive HTML application. Type in the assigned URL, enter your username and password, and you're off and running. In all modes, you access the TeraStation over the network, not as a local drive. Though the four drives are hot-swappable, getting to them can be a trial. Unlike LaCie's Biggest F800, which has a door on the front for each drive for quick and easy access, you'll have to dismantle the TeraStation's casing, starting with the rubber feet and screws on its bottom.
TeraStations now ship with Tanagra's Memeo Windows software for backing up your PC. (The TeraStation has its own backup utility for backing itself up to external USB disks.) The software works well and is easy to use, but requires extra disk space for installing Microsoft's .Net. We didn't like the forced reboot of the Memeo install routine (there should be a Reboot Later option) or the numerous GUI glitches, such as truncated text in Windows Large Font/120dpi display mode. If you bought a TeraStation before Buffalo started shipping it with Memeo, you can download the software for free from Buffalo Technologies' Web site.
Buffalo provides a utility--the TeraNavigator Client Utility--that you may have to use to tweak the default settings, depending on what type of network you install the TeraStation on. That brings us to our gripes about the product. The TeraStation doesn't default to using DHCP to automatically grab an IP address. We had to use the included utility to enable DHCP before we could access the unit. Secondly, the utility always launches Internet Explorer instead of your default Web browser--in this case, Mozilla Firefox. Those are relatively picky complaints, considering the product's overall ease of use and setup. Basically you plug in the unit's power cord, run an Ethernet cable from your PC or router to the TeraStation, and you're good to go.
The TeraStation's speed is of course limited by your network's transmission rate. Most home or small-business networks transmit at 100Mbps, though the TeraStation itself supports Gigabit Ethernet. In our informal tests, the TeraStation managed to write our 400MB mixed folder of files at 3.31MB per second and our 1.9GB image file at 4.26MB per second, which is perfectly acceptable for backup and light office usage. Copying the data back was even faster: 4.76MB per second and 7.98MB per second for the 400MB folder and the 1.9GB image file, respectively. That's plenty fast enough to stream DVDs or other multimedia content.
At this price, it's not surprising, but a little disappointing, that Buffalo Technologies backs the TeraStation with only a one-year warranty. A three- or five-year warranty is what most users would like on at least the enclosure, if not the drives as well. Toll-free phone support is available 24/7, and the online docs are useful, if not copious. Online support is decent, although the TeraStation is called "Terabyte Network Attached Storage" in the Downloads section, making resources for the unit hard to find. But after poking around a little, we found free firmware downloads for the unit on Buffalo's support site.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 User Rating:
1.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
Major conflict with Microsoft Active Directory
Pros: TeraStation is an inexpensive solution for a home office
Cons: Watch out if you have a Windows-based network! TeraStation conflicts with Active Directory -- your users won't be able to see it.
Review: We purchased the Buffalo TeraStation NAS Pro box to provide inexpensive storage and disk backup for our office network. When the product arrived, however, we found that there's a basic conflict with Microsoft's Active Directory. We couldn't 'name' the drive and the users on our LAN couldn't see it.
Buffalo's tech support team did not have a patch to fix the problem, as of 31 August, 2006. A copy of their email is included below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Buffalo Tech Support [mailto:info@buffalotech.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:27 PM
Subject: Tech Support Request
We have not been advised of when the firmware update fixing this problem will be available.
Thank you,
Tim S
----------------
To: info@buffalotech.comTech Support Request:
Region: North America
Product: TS-2.0TGL/R5
Question: I spoke with your technical support a few days ago. We were trying to resolve an issue we ran into while trying to add the TeraStation to our Windows domain. This domain runs AD. The issue is that we are not able to connect to the device by name after it was added to the domain. We could only connect by IP address.
The support person informed me that this is a known issue with this device and that a fix was being worked on. My question is, is there an ETA for when that fix will be available?
Buffalo's tech support team did not have a patch to fix the problem, as of 31 August, 2006. A copy of their email is included below.
-----Original Message-----
From: Buffalo Tech Support [mailto:info@buffalotech.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 1:27 PM
Subject: Tech Support Request
We have not been advised of when the firmware update fixing this problem will be available.
Thank you,
Tim S
----------------
To: info@buffalotech.comTech Support Request:
Region: North America
Product: TS-2.0TGL/R5
Question: I spoke with your technical support a few days ago. We were trying to resolve an issue we ran into while trying to add the TeraStation to our Windows domain. This domain runs AD. The issue is that we are not able to connect to the device by name after it was added to the domain. We could only connect by IP address.
The support person informed me that this is a known issue with this device and that a fix was being worked on. My question is, is there an ETA for when that fix will be available?
User Rating:
3.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
excellent value, excellent capacity
Pros: drive capacity
Cons: doesnt seem to operate at gigabit speed
Review: Awesome little box, only uses 53 watts at full speed, and less if discs are at idle. Configured in Raid 5 it makes a very secure little server. Editors opinion is in error that the TCPIP needs to be configured manually, it set itself quite well using my Router as the DHCP server. Once you read the manual the lights on the front are pretty easy to remember, but have fun if any of the drives do go, full system teardown if that happens. Installed a Dlink gigabit switch, and a Dlink gigabit ethernet card in one computer, then transferred a file over to the terastation, took about 20 minutes to transfer one 600 meg file. Doesnt seem right.
User Rating:
4.5 stars
out of 3 user reviews
Works Great.
Pros: reliable, easy to use.
Cons: Not cheap, but worth it.
Review: I've had the TeraStation for about one month (the 1Terabyte version). It is setup as two RAID 1 configurations of 250Mbytes each. We have 4 workstations that normally use the TeraStation and it is easy, fast and reliable. We called tech support during installation (because I didn't follow the instructions-ever do that?); they answered quickly and solved it in 2 minutes. Great product.
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